Printers designed for use in a network environment offer greater functionality than the simple desktop printer. In addition to offering more printing and post-print options (collation, binding, etc.), network printers frequently come with built-in processors, hard drives for data storage, a web server for communicating on a network and sophisticated management software. For example, on certain Xerox brand network printers, CentreWare Internet Services provides a built-in web server and management software. Once the printer is physically connected to a network, such as an intranet, it can be managed directly from a standard web browser (such as Netscape 6.02, Internet Explorer 5.0, etc.) or any web-enabled application. This management software enables administrators to monitor, configure, and troubleshoot network printers from a web browser or a web enabled application. This management software also provides hotlinks to product information, software drivers, help-desk and customer support.
Once a printer is physically connected to a network, a user on the network must install a printer driver so that the user can send print jobs to the printer. In a networked print environment, installing a printer can be a troublesome task. Many installation programs search the network for all printers that match the one the user is trying to install. Printers with embedded web servers and hard disks can provide access to the printer driver installer through the printer's embedded web server. However, when the installer program is run from the printer, the installer program still searches for all printers of the selected type, since it does not know which printer it was run from. The installation program presents the user with a list of all printers of the particular type. The user must then pick out which printer it wants to install. This proves to be tedious for the user, since the list presented contains information not easily understood by the user, such as IP addresses or technical nomenclature established by the network administrator.